Emeril wrote: As an aside, I’ve been running an Eberron campaign for the past year, having chosen Eberron in hopes that the players would sink their teeth into the rich setting and beef up their roleplaying a bit. Only one person has tried to do that, and he coincidentally used to play Vampire. The rest are just there to kill things with their cool powers, spells, and magic items. Still, I’ve tried to do my best to emphasize the story aspect of the world, but they just seem disinterested in any of that, usually waving their hands and saying, “Yeah, yeah. I go to up the stairs. Do I see anything? An Emerald Claw soldier? I attack him.” *sigh* Meanwhile, the history and details in the location are completely ignored.

You don’t have to play WoD to use more story-friendly rules. I’ve been ST’inga fantasy game using nWoD rules set for almost 3 years now. I hardly modified the rules… The largest change was the magic system, which I made up myself and which at this point I use way more freely than it’s written in the pdf. Change Computer to Navigation and Drive to Ride on the sheet and you have a working rules-set for a medieval game.

As for the over-eager killing, I choose my players very carefully. If you don’t have such an option because you don’t have any alternatives or because you’re playing with your friends… Then be firm handed the character creation process. If you don’t like what you hear, don’t give into it.

I had a game to run at a con nearly a month ago, in which I had quite a bad player. He first wanted to play a dwarf with a huge warhammer. So, I explained it once more to him that the game I run is human based, and no matter how he cajoled, I didn’t give into him. His next character concept was “a barbarian with an axe who kills people”. When I explained to him how this kind of character wouldn’t fit a renaissance urban adventure, he simply wasn’t listening. So, I forced his concept into something that made sense in my setting − an arabian gladiator who worked at the local arena-like establishment.

Okay, this guy was irrepairable and I hope you never have to deal with the likes of him, but if you want to play a long term chronicle with problematic people you have to be a nazi at some points.

a) First point is about you! Be prepared to drown your players into information. Have NPC‘s prepared before you tell them about backgorund. Write internal conflicts in the area in advance. Get a map of your city! Find pictures for your NPC’s. A picture is worth three times more than a full character sheet.

b) Require a character background with NPC’s: relatives, friends, aquaintances. Less than five is too little and require at least tow different areas. And not just names, but how they met and if one owes you something or you to him. I never bitch about Retainer or Ally merits with players, as NPC’s they make is a job they do FOR me. One player wrote me nearly 40 NPC’s for a game and I could have based multiple stories on just what ideas I got from. Use the player generated NPC’s to tie your characters together. Invent your own NPCs if and tell the player how he knows him. If a player says his character doesn’t know some detail about his past or has learned it from someone else, use it, change and twist it. I managed to make two of my PCs as relatives like that!

c) Make the PCs find a picture for their character too, or at least put some effort into that they try to find it. Also, ask for long term goals of the characters. Multiple goals. I didn’t do that 3 years ago and I feel I should have. And write them down! You may think you remember that but you won’t!

d) If you have been having problems with combat-based characters, simply ban fighting styles, etc. If someone asks what’s the merits for, I say “language proficiencies” and use them only when necessary. Like if someone says he wants his character to be able to read peoples lips, I tell him sure, that’s a 2-dot merit and we can go on without having players to read extensive lists about options. I usually don’t mind if a player wants to have good combat skills for the character, but I always ask the reasoning behind it (taking no bullshit) and nearly always encourage them to have non-militaristic jobs. This makes characters interesting and combatguys can still enjoy their good dots.

e) If you’re already in play, make the player’s actions have consequences. Have a city laws about various crimes thought out and read them to the players in advance. To make combat situations like this running up the stairs less commmon, have the nations be at peace. And I repeat — make the player’s actions have consequences. Most of my group went through a murder trial in the court.

Finally, if you don’t have the skills or means to make the fantasy character sheet, just PM me and I can translate my sheet to English for you. Of course mr. Gone made a Dark Ages sheet, and several fantasy sheets on his homepage too, that uses M:tAw rules for magic, if you’re into that. Just go nWoD and Misc. =)